SINGING UNDER DURESS

Three years ago, I was a back row baritone in a big local choir led by a gifted conductor/composer I shall call Herbie.  Herbie is an hyperactive German-Canadian who has defined conductorial temper tantrums for all time.  Normally a gentle, thoughtful soul, when given a baton and a music stand he becomes the Attila of the music world.

Herbie hatched a Really Big Idea.  He decided to combine our 60 voices with those of an excellent German-Canadian choir that he also conducted and mount a choral extravaganza to be presented in at the Centre in the Square (Kitchener's Roy Thomson Hall).  Many rehearsals ensued; the choirs separately and then together.  One Tuesday evening I misread the schedule and ended up at the wrong rehearsal.  Before I could slip away Herbie noticed me and invited me to sit in.  Herbie invitations tend to be ultimatums and so I took my accustomed back row baritone place.

Mistake.  This choir was rehearsing an Herbie composition written in a weird time signature and with more moving parts than a Heath Robinson device.  I had never heard the beast before and, given my negligible sight-reading ability, I settled in for a long, sweaty evening of running my finger along the score and faking it when I got lost.  The rehearsal was not going well for anyone.  Herbie grew agitated.  His face reddened.  As the tension rose it gave several altos bladder distress, resulting in their wiggling their way through the baritone section on the way to the loo.  As each one passed, I had to close my folder, clutch it to my chest and haul my bony legs out of the way.  I then had to find my place again and rejoin the chorus.

Finally, Herbie lost it.  The tenors just didn't get it - wrong notes, wrong entries and general screw-ups.  Now, having sung tenor in the past before ciggies and Jack Daniels demoted me to baritone, I had some sympathy for them.  Chorus tenors rarely get to sing on the notes.  Mostly, they sing in the cracks and worse, unlike the 2nd sopranos you get to hear their miscues.  But no sympathy from Herbie. For two or three minutes he bellowed his distress in German, English and possibly Urdu. When he paused to wipe the spittle from his chin, a fellow baritone spoke up.

"Herbie", he asked,  "Ve are a choir, no?"
"Yeah".
"Ve come here to sing, no?"
"Yeah."
"Then whydafuk ve are not singing?"

The sopranos tittered.  One of the bases guffawed and farted audibly.  I am sure that some 2nd sopranos farted too but nobody heard them.  Two altos headed for the loo.

Herbie tried to look stern but finally cracked up.  The rehearsal ended with order and bonhomie restored.

Oh, and the concert was a rousing success - full house, the altos wore Depends and the tenors nailed it.